Africa’s Economic Growth: A Fallacy of Numbers?

Abstract

Only a decade ago, Africa’s socioeconomic growth potential was confined to the doldrums and back alley of underdevelopment. Today, the international media continues to be abuzz with common memes such as ‘Africa Rising’ and ‘The Final Investment Frontier’ amongst others. Many writers often cite poverty, disease, starvation, wars and tribal conflict fuelled by a vicious neo-colonial legacy as the cause of the continent’s woes. Much as these may be true, we have witnessed Africa rise like the proverbial phoenix over the last decade to join the league of global and regional economic blocs negotiating for a fairer and better world economic system. Africa’s statistical growth may be problem may be a measurement issue and correction of GDP data to reflect the upward trend in economic activity. Nevertheless, one cannot deny the fact that Africa is growing whatever the numbers may seem to project. The real challenge will be the extent to which we can leverage and translate the macro-level growth at the micro-level to address the massive unemployment faced by the youth.